Pitney Bowes Recognizes Top Inventors Tradition of Innovation Continues STAMFORD, Conn., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI) announced the winners of its 12th annual Inventor of the Year award at a special ceremony held recently at its world headquarters in Stamford. This year, the award was shared by a team of seven inventors including: Feliks Bator of Easton, Conn.; David Chamberlin of Monroe, Conn.; James Euchner of Waccabuc, NY; Thomas Forth of Trumbull, Conn.; Andrei Obrea of Seymour, Conn.; David Rich of Shelton, Conn.; and David Riley of Easton, Conn. The winning patent issued in September 2003 by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office covers "Instant Online Postage." The invention is the foundation for the Internet postage application that was deployed earlier this year for eBay. This invention allows users to download postage easily over the Internet without the need for special software. Millions of packages have already been shipped since the new service's launch, attesting to the popularity and convenience of the solution. At a ceremony announcing the winners, Pitney Bowes Chairman and CEO Michael J. Critelli stated, "It is my pleasure to congratulate everyone involved with the project. Through this technology, we are expanding how and where we reach our customers in the mail stream. By thinking back from our customers' needs, Pitney Bowes is driving innovation and helping make our customers more successful. We can all take pride in our company's tradition, reputation, and leadership for innovation." Pitney Bowes intellectual property portfolio includes more than 3,500 patents worldwide in areas such as ticketing, cellular telephones, shipping, laser printing, encryption, and mailing. The Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) Association has consistently ranked Pitney Bowes in the top 200 companies receiving U.S. patents. The company is strategically leveraging its technological assets through direct development and delivery of innovative solutions, acquisitions, strategic alliances and joint ventures, and by licensing proprietary technology to others. In addition to the Inventor of the Year award, the company also recognized inventors Eric Belec of Southbury, Conn. for receiving 30 or more U.S. patents during his career; Leon Pintsov of West Hartford and Frederick Ryan of Oxford, Conn. for surpassing 50 career patents; and Ronald Sansone of Weston, Conn. who inaugurated the club of inventors who have received 100 or more U.S. patents during their career at Pitney Bowes. Sansone was also cited as the inventor granted the highest number of U.S. patents during 2003, receiving eleven in such diverse areas of technology as meter indicia security, electronic message forwarding, address updating, print your own ticket fraud detection, and methods for detecting contaminants in physical mail pieces. Pitney Bowes is the world's leading provider of integrated mail and document management systems, services, and solutions. The $4.6 billion company helps organizations of all sizes engineer the flow of communication to reduce costs, increase impact, and enhance customer relationships. With approximately 33,000 employees worldwide, Pitney Bowes serves more than 2 million businesses through direct and dealer operations. Contact: Christopher Tessier Manager, Public Relations 203-351-7210 http://www.pb.com/ DATASOURCE: Pitney Bowes Inc. CONTACT: Christopher Tessier, Manager, Public Relations, Pitney Bowes Inc., +1-203-351-7210, Web site: http://www.pb.com/

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